Matthew Offord
Main Page: Matthew Offord (Conservative - Hendon)(9 years, 4 months ago)
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Dame Anne McGuire (Stirling) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Weir. I will keep my remarks brief, as I appreciate that other Members want to speak. It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Southend West (Sir David Amess). Like others, I congratulate the hon. Member for Hertsmere (Mr Clappison). I also wish to pay a special tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs Ellman), who has shown significant bravery over many years in standing up against anti-Semitism in this country and others.
I will give a few personal reflections about visits to Auschwitz and to Terezin in the Czech Republic, which I have visited a couple of times. That site is not as well known as some other camps associated with the Holocaust but a visit there can have an equally profound effect, because of the sheer cynicism that was shown there in what was, effectively, an industrial process of slaughtering people of all ages.
My first visit to Auschwitz, which I made thanks to the Holocaust Educational Trust, was an emotional experience for myself and the other Scottish MPs and Scottish schoolchildren on the trip. One thing from that trip that has stayed with me is that at the end of our visit, a young woman said, “I don’t believe this happened.” Once I had got over the initial shock, I realised that perhaps she could not understand what had happened because it was beyond her experience as a modern young person who uses electronic equipment and sees lives in colour. It was inexplicable to her. Despite seeing the evidence that the hon. Member for Hertsmere mentioned—the clothes, shoes, glasses and cases—she still could not get her mind around the Holocaust and what had happened in Auschwitz. If ever we needed evidence why the Holocaust Educational Trust needs to continue, she gave it to me that day—it came as such a shock.
Dr Matthew Offord (Hendon) (Con)
I am grateful to have had the opportunity to visit Auschwitz with the right hon. Lady last year. Is she concerned that the Campaign Against Antisemitism has found that one in eight people believe that Jewish people talk about the Holocaust to get sympathy?